The present invention relates to soap making. More specifically, the invention provides a method for the production of variegated soap chips and/or bars. The term "soap" is used generically herein to define a cleansing agent of either the natural or synthetic type including anionic, cationic and nonionic detergents such as ethoxylated alcohol sulfates and olefin sulfonates as well as saponified fatty acid soaps and combinations of the foregoing materials.
The particulate soap produced by the new method is esthetically attractive and can have a whitish background with colored streaks such as green and blue or the background can be colored and the streaks chosen to contrast with the background color. Additionally, and in accordance with a specific aspect of the invention, the variegated particulate soap produced by the new method can be further processed in a conventional double barrel vacuum soap plodder to produce an extruded and variegated soap billet which can be cut and pressed into bar form. As used herein the term "particulate soap" or "particulate form" means either chips, ribbons, pellets etc. of the relevant material.
A primary advantage of the new method is to produce variegated soap bars using a conventional double barrel vacuum plodder apparatus. A still further advantage of the invention is to produce esthetically atrractive variegated particulate soap for laundry use.